


In Her Eyes

by Lady_R



Category: Dark Souls (Video Games), Dark Souls III
Genre: F/F, Femslash, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mild Blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 01:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17519702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_R/pseuds/Lady_R
Summary: After having killed the traitor Leonhard, Yellowfinger Heysel revives her lady and takes care of her. Complicated feelings burst within her at her sight – whether or not she can repress them, at the moment, she's yet to know.





	In Her Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Starring Sybel Kekilli (Rosaria, Mother of Rebirth), Aishwarya Rai (Yellowfinger Heysel), Kevin Kreider (Longfinger Kirk), Emily Browning (People-Pleaser Tiffany).

Her fingers move first: nothing else was to be expected. The rest of the arm follows, bare and rigid; and two big eyes afterwards, languid, opening up in one blow and brimming terror. 

Rosaria doesn’t look at them: her black pupils spread around the room, running on the brocade tents of her canopy, the walls, her own shaky hands – and the eyes of the three at her feet, kneeling, fixed into hers. 

Heysel is the first to come forward. Her Xhantous Crown lays on a chair, her brown hair are tied in a ponytail atop her head. Rosaria removes a strand from her face, blinks and sighs. 

-My Lady? How dost thou feel?- 

The air tenses in awaiting for a signal. Kirk and Tiffany stay silent, but the maiden’s hands form no sign. It’s her eyes that talk – and the shaking of her arms, the way her gaze averts their. As if any moment she’d expect to wake up somewhere else, in a much less pleasant and familiar place than her bedchamber. 

There’s still blood on those sheets, though. That’s all fanaticism causes – blood, _innocent_ blood as dear as her. Only because she didn’t die, her pain isn’t any less real. 

-’Tis good, My Lady.- Heysel bows forward. -We have killed him.- 

Rosaria’s eyes are as black as obsidian, and just as glistening. Heysel takes off her right glove and raises her open hand towards her. In another moment she’d have joked on how not yellow her fingers are – they have the color of amber, with shades of warm copper at the light of dusk – but in those long seconds nothing but her exists. 

Rosaria blinks, shrinks onto her shoulders. She’s still wearing her nightgown, of bronze silk, but the bloodied fabric looks as hard and coarse as a sack. She’ll have to get it changed. There has to be a clean gown, somewhere around there. 

-He’s dead. The traitor Leonhard, once Ringfinger, lays dead in the Chapel of Purification.- She, Kirk and Tiffany have wrapped him into a deacon robe, covering his face, free at last from its mask, with the purple fabric. The burn scars drew a vermillion mosaic, much less unpleasant than one would have expected, and the blood-stained lips smiled, satisfied still, to his executioner. They’ll probably lay him to rest in the graveyard outside the Cathedral. On the way back, Heysel had fantasized about tossing him to the leeches, and Kirk’s glance seemed to agree with her. But NIto watches on all the living from the depth of the Catacombs, and he’d have never condoned them for leaving a dead one unburied. 

_The Pontiff of Irithyll too has committed all sorts of atrocities, and Lady Rosaria was a victim of both him and his acolytes before coming up here: yet they’ll bury him like all the others, even if it’s in the mud_. It’ll be the Gravelord again to take care of him, punishing him in a much worse way than what will occur to Leonhard. At least, if it can be a merit of sorts, the masked knight only tormented one person instead of hundreds of them. 

_As if Rosaria_ – Heysel chills at that thought – _was any average one_. The Mother of Rebirth picks up the blanket from behind herself and wraps into it, but the warrior has already seen the goosebumps on her bare arms. 

-’Tis all good, worry not. Thou’t among friends.-

_Kirk made a solemn vow to avenge me, was I to die, and Tiffany to avenge me if his effort was too not enough_. She’s not a Finger, nor would she be a good Invader. She prefers to stay outside of the fray, casting Soul Arrows and Farron Darts and Crystal Hail while someone else throws themselves to the root of the problem, blade drawn. Leonhard has fought well, and has lacerated her right shoulder with his curved blade – but not even his silver mask was enough to hide his pain when the tip of her pickaxe had pierced into his stomach to the hilt. 

Heysel shakes her head, as if to toss away those gruesome thoughts. _Rosaria_. She climbs onto the bed, studying the maiden’s reaction. Her eyes are red, her nose skinny, her hands wrapped onto her blanket and over her heart. 

-’Tis all over. I am right here. No more shall thou be harmed.- 

Like all Invaders, Heysel has been murdered many times, and she knows all too well the particular cold of a blade into her belly. Not Rosaria – not even her tongue was cut off with iron, rather bitten off her mouth by her own kin. No wonder she’s so terrified.

-Kirk, bring here a bowl of hot water. Tiffany, thou’ll find clean sheets in the closet next to the tabernacle. Make haste.- 

They obey without a word. He has been invading since the times of Lordran, she has been rightfully molded by the rulers of Lothric that she served. Rosaria strokes the sheets, as if she still didn’t believe she was there. It would be beautiful, in another circumstance, to stay alone with her, gaze upon her closely and gossip about in sign language – that she still knew about, as all good witches do, but that looked sweeter only with her. 

Thoughts that Heysel could have had before a fanatic had stabbed her, ripping her Soul off her back and leaving behind a body that’s as useful to an Invader, but too cold and still for those who had loved Rosaria for real.

Maybe something could have been done, had the metal mask of the traitor Finger been any less impenetrable. No Invader has ever been truly happy, everybody knows it. Both Kirk and Creighton have lost a paramour; she herself, Heysel, had been relentlessly searching for one. Leonard wasn’t serene, but would have never accepted for her or someone else to hold his hand to chase away his endless nightmares. He had the pride of a prince, that not even his colorless clothes were enough to hide.

_Like the dragon Sinh, many centuries ago, Leonhard poured onto others the poison that filled him_.

 

Rosaria slips down the bed and curls up against the wall, low eyes and hair on her face. Kirk rips the sheets off the bed and balls them up in its opposite corner. Tiffany kneels next to the maiden, hands her the bowl, retreats neatly against the wall. Those two crowned buffoons have trained them well. But Rosaria isn’t to hear it – the Queen of Lothric was her mother, and her love for her second husband was sweet and earnest. Ruining her memories would cause her further pain: as if she hadn’t felt enough pain in those hellish days after the chiming of the Bell. 

She stays silent, watching her as she washes her face. Only afterwards, when the witch from Lothric puts the bowl away, does she come close again. 

-Are we to do more for you, My Lady?-

Rosaria blinks on her glittering eyes. She raises her right hand and points to her left pinkie finger, then she bends her index many times. 

-We know not, My Lady.- Kirk answers gloomily. -We have had no news of Creighton since Lady Sirris has defeated him. He’s probably in his cocoon still. Worry not about it.- 

_Creighton was much weaker than he believed: no wonder he has failed_. Yet Heysel feels no hostility towards the warrior of the Sunless Realms. Each one fights for their own cause, in those damned lands, and Creighton was to know it just like all the others. She does miss him a bit – but hating only Leonhard is enough of a strain. She doesn't have enough vitriol for two people. _We’ll meet again, once you’re ready to come back_. The Fingers have been split in half, but the hand is still there, and it’s good news. 

-Now thou must rest, My Lady.- Kirk whispers. -Thou must sleep, it shall do good to thee. We shall help thee however possible.-

Rosaria holds onto his hands and lets them go with a strained smile. They have chosen pink sheets, as soft as fresh grass, hoping they’d be enough to grant her a less travailed slumber. Dried blood will stay on the mattress, though. Maybe it won’t hurt Rosaria as long as she doesn’t see it. Heysel watches her as she sits upon the sheets, as sweet as a princess in her clean gown of ochre silk, and prays whoever can listen that it’s so.

-If thou’rt hungry, we can go down to the kitchens and have some delight prepared for thee.- he tries.

-No.- Rosaria signs. -I just wish to sleep. I shall eat later.-

The three of them bows. The maiden’s thin, rosy lips are bent in a fatigued smile. Heysel would give anything to alleviate at least a bit of that burden. She stares at the floor, feeling guilt for her selfishness. She’s not the one that almost got killed. 

She raises her gaze again, to look at her once more – and Rosaria’s meet hers, dark, as sweet as nectar. Only a monster would want them to be closed forever. 

The maiden blinks, stretches a hand to hers.

-Thou can stay, Heysel.- she signs. -May the others go. I shall have to thank thee properly for having saved me.-

She touched her index, signing that it’s her. Heysel feels her blood pumping in her cheeks, a sweet sigh escaping her lips.

Tiffany rises first, shaking the folds off her skirt; Kirk right afterwards, his Armor of Thorns chiming at every gesture of his. 

-Farewell, My Lady. We wish all luck to thee.- 

The door is shut behind her back, silence falls into the chilly bedchamber, and Rosaria’s eyes already look dryer. Her arms wrap around Heysel’s shoulders, holding her close, and her raven velvet-soft hair tangle along hers. The scent of blood is still there, rancid, but nothing a warm bath can’t relieve. 

_I’ll take care of you, I swear it_. And as she thinks it, quivering of excitement, Rosaria’s lips brush against her forehead, as soft and quiet as all good memories. 


End file.
